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Digital Game-Based Learning by Marc Prensky ©2001 Marc Prensky______________________________________________________________________________________
From
Digital Game-Based Learning 
(McGraw-Hill, 2001)
by Marc Prensky 
 Chapter 10
True Believers:Digital Game-Based Learning in TheMilitary
We KNOW the technology works, we’ve proven it over and over again, and we just want to get on with using it 
.-Don Johnson, the Pentagon
 Adopt the role of Joint Force Commander and tackle ten realistic scenarios to hone your knowledge of doctrine. Adjust friendly and enemy forces in four selectable scenarios totest varying military possibilities.
-JFE Training Game Box
“Boy, can’t you see I’m flying here? Go away”
-an Air Force General in a simulator to a trainer(Quoted in
Training
Magazine)Business people are slowly “getting it.” Schools “get it” here and there. But the U.S.Military “gets it”
big time
 .
The Military has embraced Digital Game-Based Learningwith all the fervor of true believers. Why? Because it
works
for them. And trust me, theguys in charge of training at the Pentagon are a very sharp group. They have seen andevaluated
everything
.“We’re a few standard deviations ahead of most, including those in industry, yet mostpeople don’t know who we are” says Michael Parmentier, head of the Readiness andTraining unit of the Department of Defense at the Pentagon.
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The military’s training mission is a daunting one. It has to train 2.4 million men andwomen in the four services (army, navy, air force, marines) plus almost another millioncivilian employees
2
to work as individuals, as teams, as units, and in combination tomeet all sorts of unforeseen and difficult objectives around the world under very high-pressure conditions. It has to train its officers to lead, manage and command. It has
1
 
Digital Game-Based Learning by Marc Prensky ©2001 Marc Prensky______________________________________________________________________________________
educate military dependants. Turnover is huge enough to make any corporate executiveshudder and among those who stay, job change rapid, particularly at the officer level.Strategy, tactics and equipment are all continually evolving at a rapid pace. Extremelysophisticated technology is playing a greater and greater role. And the training has to befast. No time for lollygaging around – this the Army! (or the Navy! Or the Air Force! Orthe Marines!) We’ve got missions to perform and they’d better be done correctly!Not only are the branches extremely complex organizations themselves, they need to becoordinated to work together in most mission situations. The services have a combinedincoming cohort of a quarter of a million enlistees
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to train each year in military trainingbasics and then in over 150 military occupational areas and literally thousands of specialties and sub-specialties. They need to train for war, yet increasingly they need totrain for peacekeeping missions, as America’s role in the world changes. Finally, theirincoming recruits are not seasoned adults, with work experience and habits on theirresumes, but typically high school graduates and non-graduates, most of whom havenever worked before. Molding these people into a well-trained force is a staggering job,and the military approaches it with the purpose, and budget of a major mission. Thecombined training budgets of the armed services are about $18 billion, including $6billion institutional training, $12 billion operational (unit) training, and excluding traineessalaries.
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It is precisely because of this mission that the US Military is the world’s largest spenderon and user of Digital Game-Based Learning. The military uses games to train soldiers,sailors, pilots and tank drivers to master their expensive and sensitive equipment. It usesgames to train command teams to communicate effectively in battle. It uses games toteach mid-level officers (local Commanders-in-Chief or CINCs and their staffs) how toemploy joint force military doctrine in battle and other situations. It uses games to teachsenior officers the art of strategy. It uses games for teamwork and team training of squads, fire teams and other units; games for simulating responses to weapons of massdestruction, terrorist incidents and threats; games for mastering the complex process of military logistics; and it even uses games for teaching how
not to
fight when helpingmaintain peace. In fact, there seems precious little that the military
doesn’t 
use some formof game to train. Let’s start with an example.
Joint Force Employment (JFE) 
The day I arrived at the Pentagon for a meeting with the Training and Readiness Unit of the Assistant Secretary of Defense, the guys in the shop were eager to show me the firstcopies of a brand new game prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for mid-level officers— Captains, Majors, Lt. Commanders and such — that had just been completed twoweeks ago. The game has the rather prosaic but highly descriptive title
 Joint Force Employment (JFE),
but it is anything but prosaic. Its purpose is to ensure that officersfrom each of the military Services have the opportunity to prepare themselves for “JointTask Force” operations, which is the integration of military personnel from differentservices — Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines — into a cohesive interoperable military
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Digital Game-Based Learning by Marc Prensky ©2001 Marc Prensky______________________________________________________________________________________
organization. The Joint Staff has established “Joint Doctrine,” (“doctrine” is themilitary’s term for “the way it should be done”) a set of standard guidelines and rules of engagement associates with specific joint operational tasks and functions.
 JFE 
is,essentially “how to” field training for these officers. According to its official description,it is designed exclusively for today’s U.S. Military to convey the concept that “JointWarfare is Team Warfare” and to enhance knowledge of Joint Doctrine within the USMilitary.
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How much of a real game is
 JFE?
Well, for starters it comes in a game-sized shrink-wrapped box printed with fancy graphics and screen shots, looking for the entire worldlike it should sit on the store shelf right next to
Quake III 
,
 Age of Empires II 
, or
 EverQuest 
. Even the (real) official Joint Chiefs of Staff logo on the front of box looks —to those of us unfamiliar with it — like an artist’s conception right from a commercialgame. In fact the
only
thing on the box that gives away that this
isn’t 
a commercial gameare the words “This Product is the property of the United States Government,” in thelower right hand corner.So right from the beginning, rather than
hide
the fact that is a game behind the corporate-speak of “training challenge” or “competition,” the military instead
 flaunts
the product’s“gameness.” Just listen to the box copy:
•
 
Select from computer assisted walk through mode or player controlled modeto create and control large combinations of forces and compete against stateof the art computer artificial intelligence (AI).
•
 
 Adopt the role of Joint Force Commander and tackle ten realistic scenarios tohone your knowledge of doctrine. Adjust friendly and enemy forces in four selectable scenarios to test varying military possibilities.
•
 
Spectacular photo-realistic terrain maps that range from the frigid arctic tothe vast desert.
•
 
3D military units pulled directly from the U.S. Military arsenal.
•
 
 Dazzling high-resolution and high-detailed graphics.
•
 
 Dynamic 3D battle effects including flying debris and smoking buildings.
 So
 JFE 
definitely
looks
like a game. But, much more importantly, JFE also
 feels
and
 plays
like a game. In fact, it’s two games. The first is a pretty traditional quiz gameplayed after a fairly CBTish, “tell-test” intro to Joint Force Doctrine, but the quiz isspiced up with “Jack-like” graphics and sounds. It’s the second game, however, that’sthe “real” game, the meat of the program. That game is a heart-pounding war simulationin which you set your forces rolling and shooting, take out bridges and enemy planes,have air cover flying overhead (if you request it), all in the same dynamic 21/2 D top
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